Yep. It can permanently damage your hair. You may lose your curl pattern and get other problems as well (increased porosity, breakage, etc).

Straightening once in a while is usually not THAT bad, however if you do it too often you your hair can be damaged permanently.

And like Ericachristina said, your new hair should be fine, unless your curl pattern has changed due to hormones. Yes curl pattern sometimes changes when you get into puberty, but you're already 17 so I doubt that's the case.

And know this: birth control pills can also have some influence, though I think that's rather rare. Birth control pills are rather light nowadays. None of my friends including myself had any hair change due to birth control. So far I've only seen ONE person on NC.com complain about it.